


The Villain Gets An Elegy (New Shoes)

by ThatWeirdGuyInTheBushes



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alexis | Quackity Needs a Hug, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Chronic Pain, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Injury Recovery, Mentioned Jschlatt (Video Blogging RPF), Panic Attacks, Past Abuse, Past Character Death, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, President Toby Smith | Tubbo, Protective TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Recovery, Toby Smith | Tubbo Needs a Hug, Toby Smith | Tubbo-centric, Victim Blaming, complicated feelings, kind of, philza played favourites, rated t for trauma, stealing someone elses tag to say:, trauma bonding pogchamp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:15:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28392264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatWeirdGuyInTheBushes/pseuds/ThatWeirdGuyInTheBushes
Summary: At some point between the first time that Schlatt hit them and the day he died, Quackity started being Alex. Because at some point between the first time that Schlatt hit them and the day he died, they started to be the only ones who could understand each other.-Grieving is hard. Grieving someone who hurt you is harder. Tubbo is still trying to make sense of it.
Relationships: Alexis | Quackity & Toby Smith | Tubbo, Floris | Fundy & Toby Smith | Tubbo, Toby Smith | Tubbo & Everyone, Toby Smith | Tubbo & Phil Watson, Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit
Comments: 29
Kudos: 332





	The Villain Gets An Elegy (New Shoes)

**Author's Note:**

> AKA my traumatized ass got tired of people specifically in this fandom simplifying abuse recovery and now we have 3000 words of rambling. Enjoy.

The thing about Schlatt is that he’s dead. Final life dead. Permanent. Tubbo is never going to see his horrible face around ever again.

And that’s not totally sunk into Tubbo’s head yet. Or, it has, but the rest of his body hasn’t started picking up on it. His heart has never settled into a normal amount of beats per minute, and it doesn’t feel like any of his muscles have untensed.

His scars hurt, but they always hurt. Every day since he got them has always been a question of  _ how much  _ rather than  _ if, _ and ever since the 16th, the answer has been a lot. The fire and the fighting and the withers and the Schlatt trying to break a bottle over his head hasn’t been good for healing. It’s only been a few months since the festival and Tubbo has had to learn that getting better doesn’t happen that quick.

He gets straight into rebuilding. That’s just how Tubbo does things. Work and work and work until the empty bad feelings can shake out of his chest.

It doesn’t work, this time. This time, his hands shake with the exertion of breathing, and every small pull on the scar tissue is just burning all over again. They were really pretty colours, is all Tubbo can think.

Phil didn’t recognize him. After the battle. Tubbo was turned away, and Phil was looking at the more scarred side of his face, but his dad walked up to him after the fight of their lives and started to say  _ hey, I don’t believe we’ve met,  _ and he cut himself off but it felt like a hole has been dug in the pit of Tubbo’s stomach. Something in there, something that was  _ important and vital and a piece of him _ has been stolen, and there will never be a way to make peace with that.

He will never regret giving himself up for his country, but that wasn’t a noble sacrifice. It wasn’t dying with or for his friends. It wasn’t the childhood he let bleed out of him. It did nothing. It didn’t matter. Schlatt is dead, Technoblade is gone, there was not a good reason, and there will never be a way to make peace with that.

So Tubbo pretends he can still spend eight hours building. He curls up under blankets when he gets home and then kicks them off and then drags them back on again and he can’t sleep anymore so he just shivers from something that isn’t the cold but isn’t anything quite as specific as pain.

His dyslexia gets somehow worse, and it’s hard to write any papers through the exhaustion and the swimming letters but he tries. And it is not okay. And that is fine.

He’s building with Phil when it starts to get even worse. Tears build up in the back of his eyes, and it’s like every nerve in his body is singing the highest note it can.

Rubber bands squeeze his lungs together. He’s felt Phil’s eyes on him for at least an hour now, but the look is getting heavier. Suddenly, Tubbo’s axe clatters to the ground.

“Sorry.”

Phil picks it up but doesn’t give it back. “It’s alright. Do you need anything?”

Tubbo pauses, staring at his shaking hands, and he’s about to say no but he can’t even get the word past his tongue. “Weakness pot,” he mumbles. Phil tugs him to his feet and tries to put one of Tubbo’s arms around his shoulder, but Tubbo pulls away.

They climb down the dry sewer and into Wilbur’s home. The ghost himself isn’t there, but his potion supplies are. “Why not healing?”

Tubbo sits on a barrel, leaning forward with his elbows on his shoulders, trying to keep his breath under control. “Healing would only help if they weren’t from a death. Weakness makes it stop hurting.”

Tubbo knows that Phil has died twice, but he also knows that both deaths were quick. Tumbling into the void, a baby zombie, both were simple kills that didn’t leave hardly anything behind.

Phil’s hands clench into fists by his side. He’s staring into the brewing stand. “I’m sorry. I shoulda been there for you, I know that losing your first life is-”

Tubbo interjects before he can stop himself. “My second.”

“What?”

He taps something on his knee. “This- the fireworks were my second life.”

Phil audibly swallows, one of his hands coming up to his face, and it’s Tubbo’s turn to stare into the swirling grey potions. “Oh.”

“Yeah. Sorry, for- sorry.”  _ Sorry for being me,  _ Tubbo almost says.  _ Sorry that none of your sons turned out like you wanted. Sorry that Tommy couldn’t be president, so you could at least have one kid to be proud of.  _ “Sorry.”

“Not your fault,” Phil chokes, and hands Tubbo the potion. Tubbo downs it, closing his eyes, the pain already starting to smooth over. He couldn’t disagree more. It always leads back to his fault.

That’s one of the things that Schlatt drilled into his head when he was still around. If something goes wrong, it’s usually Tubbo’s fault. And whether that was because Tubbo was in charge of nearly everything or because there was just something about him that made every bad thing that was created somehow be born of him, Tubbo has never figured out.

The thing about Schlatt is that he’s dead, and Tubbo still feels exactly the same.

-

The first time that Tubbo came to Pogtopia with a black eye, Tommy almost charged into L’Manberg to kill Schlatt himself.

And part of that was almost a little funny, even though it shouldn’t have been because they both knew that that was fucking impossible, and Tommy could rage and ramble all he wanted and it wouldn’t do anything.

And the little part of it that was funny also made Tubbo want to cry, just a bit, so he grabbed Tommy’s hand to stop his pacing and asked for an icepack.

And Tommy swallowed. And snapped his teeth together. And he got Tubbo an icepack, and then they sat by the fire for the rest of the night. And for what was one of only a few times in both their lives, neither of them had anything to say.

Once, when they were really little, Tubbo and Tommy played a game of hide and seek. Tommy was the seeker, and Tubbo wanted to win because they were betting a chocolate bar on it. So he went far into the woods behind their house, and he got lost. Tommy couldn’t find him, and it was starting to get dark out. He found a grove, with lots of daisies and bees and squirrels in it.

It took Tommy two hours to find him, which meant that Tubbo definitely won the chocolate bar. And it wasn’t really scary, being on his own, but Tubbo said that it was to make Tommy feel better about being scared too. It was the first time he ever saw Tommy cry.

That night around the campfire was another. Tubbo didn’t say anything, that time. Part of it was because he couldn’t think of anything to say. But he doesn’t know if he would have said something, even if he had the words. He was too tired to pretend.

Tommy reached over and grabbed his hand. Squeezed it once. Tubbo squeezed back. They sat there for a few more minutes, holding hands, the air quiet and heavy with all the words they couldn’t think of.

“I have to go back,” Tubbo said.

“You could stay here.” Tommy squeezed tighter.

Tubbo let go first. “No. I can’t.”

-

The first time that someone yells at him after Schlatt dies, Tubbo thinks that he’s dying.

Fundy isn’t even serious about it. It’s not a big deal, it’s not a problem, it shouldn’t be, but Tubbo hears his voice raise and-

It’s not a flashback. It’s not like he’s seeing Schlatt. But his chest is tightening, and his head is swimming, and it’s like there’s molten lava in his stomach, burning him up and making him sick and sending smoke into his lungs.

His head is being compressed. He stares down at his fingers, picking at the bandages wrapped around them. Fundy isn’t even really yelling  _ at  _ him. Just yelling about things in general, yelling about how there’s no good food and how the house is too cold and Tubbo feels like he’s going to vomit.

So he gets up from the table, goes into his room, slams the door, and spends the next half an hour hyperventilating on his bed and ignoring every knock that comes from outside. And it is not okay. And that is fine.

Tubbo nearly pulls his hair out in a desperate attempt to bring himself back down to his own body. He gets a couple of strands. One of them is grey. He wishes he was surprised by that, but he’s not.

Tubbo smelled like sulfur for days after. Techno took Tommy to the infirmary, after their fight in the pit, and as soon as Tubbo saw him, he cried. He had never been that scared before. It was like a lightning storm in his heart.

Tubbo’s suit smelled like Schlatt’s cologne. If he hadn’t burned it, it might still. But he did burn it, or what he still had of it, the first night he was able to stand in Pogtopia. And then he had the worst panic attack of his life because burning things and Schlatt’s cologne and the smell of blood don’t mix well with being Tubbo. Tommy tried to hug him but Tubbo shoved him off.

Tubbo wonders if he still smells like himself, or if those two have hooked themselves so deep under his skin that he only smells like them.

A tiny part of him, which is made of hair ruffles and lullabies to sleep and an older brother he hid behind at parties, wonders if the president’s uniform makes him smell like Wilbur.

-

At some point between the first time that Schlatt hit them and the day he died, Quackity started being Alex. Because at some point between the first time that Schlatt hit them and the day he died, they started to be the only ones who could understand each other. 

If Tubbo ever spoke to Tommy about the nice things, about the way that Schlatt patted him on the back and laughed at his jokes and said he was proud a hundred times more than Wilbur or Phil ever did, he’d be called mad. Alex got it, though. Alex was the only one who understood that the memories of Schlatt were an awkward minefield, that every time you walked through you might step on a compliment or a scene of bonding or the worst moment of your life.

“Y’know, I can’t remember the last time someone said they were proud of me before Schlatt did.” Alex leans back in his chair, kicking his feet up on the desk. It’s late. It’s always late when they talk about these things, and Tubbo thinks it’s because the darkest times of night are the only times it feels speakable. “I don’t even think he was. He didn’t have a lot to be proud of me for. But- but you believe it, y’know? When Schlatt said something like that.” Alex swallowed, looking up at the ceiling with a starry sheen to his eyes. “It felt like flying.”

Tubbo nods. He stares at his signature, sleeping on a little dotted line. “Do you think he woulda been nicer, if things had been different?”

“Different how?”

“I dunno. If we'd been better?”

Alex crosses his arms over his chest. Back in the thick of it, they’d had a talk on the roof, and Alex said: _“I’d fly you away if I still could.”_ He wrapped Tubbo up in wings that would never touch the sky again. 

“You did your best,” is what he says now, which sounds like an answer but isn’t. “I’m thinking about therapy.”

Tubbo rests his head on the cool wooden desk. “That’s nice.”

“Niki wants to be a counsellor. She’s offering.”

“Yeah?”

“Maybe you should think about therapy.”

Tubbo doesn’t respond to that one. He falls asleep at his desk, and if he wakes up with bile in his mouth that tastes like vodka and candy, no one has to know.

-

Alex goes to therapy.

Tubbo tries to tear down the dunk-tank. Tubbo decorated his own execution. It feels like he’s still dying. He gets Ranboo to tear down the dunk-tank.

Ranboo gets Tommy to help because Ranboo is hurt by water. Tommy complains the whole time, but he does it, and Tubbo doesn’t want to think that he’s that obvious even though he knows he is.

“I don’t get it,” he’ll tell Alex later, in the early hours of the morning. His hands were still shaking from the nightmare. “Why would he do any of the nice things? Why couldn’t he just be mean and make it less complicated.”

Alex puts a cup of coffee in front of him. Milk. Two sugars. “I don’t know. I’ve been talking to Niki about that and she’s trying to explain.” There’s a little pause. Alex doesn’t have to say it, but he does. “Maybe you should think about therapy.”

“I don’t know.”

“Will you think about it?”

Tubbo tries to respond to that one, but all the words are too big and clunky to make it past his lips.

-

The day before the festival, Schlatt got Tubbo new shoes.

Even today, long after it's over with, Tubbo can't help but wonder why. It's such an obscure thing. Such a pointless act of kindness. It stirs up his heart, moving around the hot metal and melding it into something different than it was before.

Schlatt did that sometimes. He was violent and mean and loud all the time except for these rare little moments where he would give Tubbo the briefest glimpse of a better person underneath all of that, where he would do something good. And he got Tubbo new shoes, the day before he had him killed in front of everyone he knew.

Tubbo kicks up a little dirt as he fidgets. Schlatt's headstone is chipped at the top where Alex put an axe through it. It was cathartic. Tubbo and Alex have been doing a lot of cathartic things over Schlatt's grave, lately. It's a weird thing to do, but it's working for them, and it's nice to have something to do to try and get out all the things that build up in his muscles and tissue when he thinks about Schlatt.

He really wishes he could ask about the shoes. He doesn't have them anymore, because explosions and fighting and being Tubbo don't mix well with dress shoes, but he still wants to ask if there was a point to it. If it was just one of those manipulation tactics that Alex is trying to work him through understanding, or if it actually meant something, or if it was just because Tubbo needed a new pair of shoes and Schlatt was feeling gracious.

He'd also like to see Schlatt again so he can steal the ring off his finger and throw it into a volcano, or something dramatic like that. Tubbo had a scar on his face from that stupid ring. It's not like anyone can see it now, but it still bothers him, sometimes.

He wonders if Schlatt knew that Technoblade was going to use fireworks. Knew how much that would fucking hurt. Knew how much it would scar, or how Tubbo's dad wouldn't recognize him the next time they saw each other. Or how much people would stare at it and how that would get under Tubbo's skin and corrode him from the inside, how tired he would be of everyone he met doing double takes when they saw him or how it would be a permanent reminder of everything Tubbo has nightmares about.

He doesn't know why he's even brought flowers, this time.

He drops them on the grave plot. "You don't deserve these," he says. "They're perfectly good flowers, and you don't deserve them." Tubbo kicks a small rock and it bumps against the headstone. "I don't know. Consider it payback, I guess. For the shoes."

-

He finds Fundy on Eret’s tower, the night that Tommy ruins everything.

Tubbo was looking for Fundy, trying to get someone to clean up the Camarvan, but the stars caught his eye. He sits down beside Fundy.

“Hey,” Fundy starts.

“Hey. Whatcha thinking about?” Tubbo leans his elbows on his knees, smiling gently. Fundy always makes him feel terribly old and tired, but he does his best not to let it show. Not just because it would make Fundy feel bad, but also because it wouldn’t make much sense.

“The war.” Fundy sounds confused by his own answer, as if he can’t quite believe it. “Just- it’s weird. We were really young, then, weren’t we? And happy. What changed?”

Tubbo is quiet for a while. Fundy doesn’t understand a lot of things, and sometimes that can get grating, but he does understand the first war. That’s not something Tubbo can talk to Alex about.

Alex doesn’t understand how smoke crawls into your lungs and digs out a home in the flesh. How the coldest words are the simplest. How it felt to build a world out of the dust and to watch it prosper, and to sing an anthem around a campfire, and to not regret any bit of the everything you gave it.

Fundy gets it, Tubbo thinks.

“We grew up.”

“Fuck. We did, didn’t we?”

They’re both quiet for a long time, until Fundy points out how one of the clouds floating above them looks like a bear, and they both lay back and try to find the most interesting shapes.

There’s a lot of things that Fundy doesn’t get. The first time Schlatt laid a finger on him was in the van, the day he died. And Fundy still has two lives left, and Fundy has always had a father who wanted him. But there are some things that  _ only  _ Fundy gets, and cloud gazing is one of them.

“That one looks like a bee,” Fundy says.

“I’m thinking about going to therapy,” Tubbo responds.

“Good for you.”

“Yeah. It is.”

-

It’s raining when Tubbo does the right thing. It’s raining, and he is not crying, and he is angry at Alex for the first time in a while. He’s angry at everything, but he’s angry at Alex and Fundy more than anything else.

Things could have been alright if they’d just listened. If they’d helped him, for once in his life, if they hadn’t followed Tommy right off the edge of the cliff.

Alex tells him that he’s acting like Schlatt and it fills his throat up with blood. His hands shake. He’s not. He’s not.

“Why would you-?” Tubbo’s tongue is poked and stabbed by the barbed words tumbling out of his mouth. “You, of all people- I thought you would… Why would you say that?”

  
  


Tubbo goes back to the white house, ready to tear out his own hair, and he dry-heaves over the toilet. His scars hurt. His legs hurt. Everything hurts and Tubbo doesn’t know if there’s a way to make it better. Maybe there isn’t.

Tubbo goes to his desk and works. The cage in his chest full of feelings stays under tight lock and key.

Alex comes back to the white house. “I’m sorry,” he says first. “The thing I said about Schlatt was out of line, and I’m sorry. I was… emotional, and angry at you, and I wasn’t as considerate of your feelings as I should have been. So I’m sorry.”

Tubbo rubs his eyes. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

Tubbo flushes. “I wasn’t- I wasn’t expecting that.”

Alex smiles a little, sitting down at his desk near the window. “It’s a therapy thing.”

Tubbo rolls his eyes, waves a dismissive hand, and things feel a little bit like normal again. Not quite there, but almost.

Tubbo wonders sometimes if it was the alcohol that made Schlatt act as he did. But Wilbur and Jack Manifold could get drunk together and neither of them ever hit anyone. Part of him wonders if it was the loneliness or the hurt that Schlatt didn’t mean to wear so clearly on his skin. But Tubbo is lonely and hurt all the time.

“What made him do it, do you think?”

Alex shrugs. “I don’t think it was anything. It wasn’t- it wasn’t you. You told me that you thought that, and it wasn’t. It wasn’t anyone’s  _ fault.  _ He- he chose to, y’know? It was just him.”

“Yeah,” Tubbo murmurs. “Yeah, I think I get it. Is that another therapy thing?”

Alex just smiles at that one.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this, leave a comment. They really make my day <3


End file.
